The study that I will tell you about this week is not made up of runners, but of cyclists. It was driven by Quebeckers, including Myriam Paquette and Guy Thibault. For 6 weeks, a group of researchers compared the beneficial effects on the endurance capacity of an athlete training in so-called "submaximal" intervals versus another training in "supramaximal" intervals. The submaximal intervals were at 85% of the athletes' VO2 max while the supramaximal group intervals were performed at 115% of the VO2 max.
These intervals were performed 3 times per week, until exhaustion, on athletes moderately trained in endurance. Subsequently, it was found that the time spent training at high intensity was 47% shorter in the supramaximal training group.
Both training groups saw similar improvements in VO2 max, peak power, and anaerobic power.
The authors conclude by mentioning that submaximal and supramaximal intervals appear to improve VO2 max as much, even though the supramaximal training group spent about half the time training for this outcome.
This study is interesting, because we understand that in the short term, the 2 training protocols can bring improvements. I know this is difficult to conduct as research, but I would be curious to see the effect of these training protocols being used for several months. In my opinion, the progression in physiological factors would not be as large as what we see here after 6 weeks.
